When he goes ballistic over shorts, I know something's not right.

[gcvmom]

difficult child 2 came home from school today and within 10 minutes we were having an argument over what shorts he could wear to soccer practice (which isn't for three more hours). And it escalated a bit (thanks, Dad!) until I dropped the subject and told husband to do the same. difficult child 2 was teary eyed and angry and frustrated and stuck and... just not himself.

I quietly sat near him and proceeded to ask about his day. Just benign stuff, and he started to relax and come down from his amped up emotions. Nothing out of the ordinary it seemed in the way the day had played out. I asked if he felt okay, he said his throat was sore. No fever that I could feel. I asked him to let me look at his throat in the bathroom where the light is better, and it did look red. I know he's pretty tired from the new school schedule, so I suggested he lay down in his room for a bit. He's been sleeping over an hour now, poor guy.

I hope he's not getting sick. I hope it's just a fatigue thing. But even if it is fatigue, I'm not sure what more we can do about it. He still has to do homework even if we skip soccer practice tonight. He went to bed at 9pm last night so it's not like he's staying up late. And I get him up at 7:15am. But this is my kid who needs to sleep 12-15 hours a night. This is going to be a really hard year if he can't adjust to the sleep issue.

 

[KTMom91]

I'm heading out to get Hubby some cold pills, chicken soup, and orange juice. He came home with a sore throat and headache, and says he's exhausted.

Hope it's nothing serious with difficult child!

 

[Andy]

Sore red throat and still sleeping doesn't sound too promising. I hope he feels well after his nap. I can totally understand the struggle to get enough sleep especially a 12 year old who needs 12 + hours (I am struggling with my new 13 year old who needs 10 plus hours - he knows why, just hard to do) - he is not going to want to go to bed early enough even if he gets why. 12 year olds are old enough to stay up later, not go to bed with the little kids in their view point. Our kids have to know that taking care of their sleep needs is such a large priority is keeping on track.

Good luck! How is he now?

 

[susiestar]

I hope he is not getting sick. Sounds like maybe you will need to put some homework limits into his IEP. If for nothing else than for health reasons. Be SURE he has books at home and doesn't have to cart them back and forth. It will totally wreck his back if the backpack is too heavy.

Hugs to both of you!

I would not wake him up for soccer OR homework. Just put a note in to the teachers that he was ill. If he IS sick, better to keep him home a day now than all next week when it will be very worse. With thank you I can head off a LOT of problems with a judicious sick day for him to sleep.

 

[gcvmom]

He's still tired but he did get up when I woke him for practice. He was hungry, too, but all he had time for was a yogurt. He acknowledged that he was being a bit inflexible over the shorts issue. I hope that after he eats when we get home, he's able to get his homework done.

He's in a critical skills class at the end of the day, and my understanding was that they would work on homework and social skills as well as general organization skills, but so far all he's done this week was play chess or Jenga.

 

[ML]

I hope he isn't getting sick. They sure crash just beforehand, don't they.

 

[klmno]

How is he today? Was he able to go to school? It seems they all start catching the viruses shortly after school starts back....I hope he's ok.

 

[gcvmom]

He seemed fine today. Still no fever, and although his throat looked red to me last night, he told me after practice that his throat was hurting because he was frustrated and had been crying after the intial argument/escalation.

After practice, he came home, ate, worked on homework for about an hour, took a short break and ate some more, then finished his homework and got to bed by about 10:45pm -- late, but at least he got everything done and was feeling better overall.

We had a talk about his critical skills class that's at the end of the day. I told him that if he was going to choose to use that time to play games, then he would not be needing a break when he got home from school since he would have spent the previous 90+ minutes doing nothing, essentially. So he agreed to try to get a jump on the homework during that class time whenever possible. That way he CAN afford to take a nap when he gets home if he needs to.

 

[klmno]

That was a good approach- about the break and doing classwork.

FWIW, my son once had strep but had not had the typical fever or stomach ache beforehand so you might want to keep an eye out or even call the sd and make sure nothing too serious is going around.

 

[gcvmom]

I will, klmno. Strep is a very bad thing for difficult child 2 because of his Sydenham's... it can cause a flare up of the movement AND mood problems we had for two years that only just resolved last Spring. If I see white spots or if he complains more about a sore throat, I'll get him in for a culture.

 

[totoro]

Could it be his allergies? Maybe manifesting in his throat? We are having high allergens right now.

I hope he is feeling better now at School.
Start of School just hoovers.
Even a months in and it still hoovers! LOL
Besides the break I get.

You just have so much to juggle! All I can think everytime you post is a huge wall chart taking up one whole wall.

 

[KTMom91]

Glad he was agreeable about your time management suggestion. Hope the sore throat was just because he was upset, and there's nothing worse going on.